Quote

I have some irrepressible pop impulses to write an appealing, concise song. And I also have some irrepressible kind of restlessness as well, and I need to keep myself interested. When I'm left to my own devices, there's a struggle.

Andrew Bird

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Andrew Bird
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: July 11
Fiddler
Film Editor
Guitarist
Jazz Musician
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Chicago
Illinois
Andrew Wegman Bird
Andrew W. Bird
Well
Interested
Irrepressible
Need
Struggle
Concise
Needs
Song
Restlessness
Writing
Write
Impulses
Kind
Left
Appealing
Keep
Devices
Also
Pops
Wells
Impulse

More quotes by Andrew Bird

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What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It's birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it's spectacular. And it worked out.
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You can build up expectations for a song before you record it, and then it's like nothing's good enough in the studio.
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Melodies are just honest. They can only be what they are. Words have the capacity for deception. Theyre all full of subtext, and some of them are cliche and overused and vernacular. Theyre tricky. All I can say is, words are tricky.
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With the words, a lot of things start with questions. Some word kind of piques my interest, and I love the way it sounds, but I really don't know what it means. And I honestly don't care for a while.
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I put a lot into my records, and I won't release anything I'm not totally thrilled with.
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If you take a little time, let's say three weeks off, after recording a song, and you listen to it every other day, you're just going to know eventually.
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I definitely have to give myself permission, like on Master Swarm, to rip a lead on that. Just play a violin solo that's - it's a bit showoff-y, but it's fun, so who cares?
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The orchestra's an amazing instrument, but I don't want to just arrange my songs for it. I think that might be kind of boring and a little bit overdramatic, perhaps. I'm still just having too much fun doing it my way, for the time being.
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I'm coming from a place that's more experimental and indulgent already, so for the last 10 years, it's been more like, How can I defend my own sensibilities by writing a nugget of a little catchy pop song? That's how I'm stretching myself, by writing something really simple.
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The music that I write is often not necessarily full of doom and gloom. You'll notice in most of the darkest songs, the music is actually pretty peaceful and lulling.
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I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.
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Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.
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I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.
Andrew Bird
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Some of my earlier songs are kind of more about mental illness.
Andrew Bird
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I'm a terrible Scrabble player.
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The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make.
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When I start asking my friends, What do you think this means? And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like apocryphal, for instance.
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I haven't had that many people onstage for a while, and I'm looking forward to that. They're all such creative musicians in their own right. They're all complete individuals. They're not just a pick-up band. They all have their own thing going on.
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The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.
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I really believe there's more honesty in one live show than there may be in my whole output.
Andrew Bird